is also a senior fellow at the brookings institute, and was previously a supreme court correspondent for "the new york times." he graduated from harvard law school, but despite that handicap has done quite well for himself, including his outstanding book on the shameful injustice of the duke law cross case, which she co-wrote with professor casey johnson. insight from that book might be relevant today regarding the failed criminal charges for dominique strauss-kahn, where casey antony, but hopefully today we will urge him to stick to the supreme court's term. with that, let me welcome jess bravin to begin our program. [applause] >> thank you, todd gaziano. well, as scribes, our job is to make the supreme court interesting, and it was a year where i think that michael, stuart, and die, it is came closer to earning -- and i, at least came closer to earning our pay. it began with the chance for something new and exciting coming out of this old building on first street, but it turned out to be business as usual, which many of the major cases being offered instead of reversed and given us